Iceland document photos online

In most countries your surname is your family's badge, passed down for generations. In Iceland it doesn't exist. Icelanders carry patronymics instead: a child of Jón becomes Jónsson or Jónsdóttir, so a mother, father and child can all hold different last names on their passports. Parliament banned brand-new family surnames back in 1925 as un-Icelandic, and a state Naming Committee still vets every first name a baby can legally receive. The result is a national identity system unlike any other in Europe, where the document in your pocket records who your parent was, not which clan you belong to.

• Surnames Iceland has essentially no family names: people are identified by patronymics, so a passport reads 'Jónsdóttir' (daughter of Jón) and family members routinely carry different surnames.
• Naming law A government Naming Committee, established in 1991, maintains an official register of approved given names and must approve any new one to confirm it fits Icelandic grammar before it can appear on a birth record or passport.
• Passport power In the Henley Passport Index for 2025 the Icelandic passport ranked 8th in the world, opening visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 181 destinations.
• Genealogy The Íslendingabók database traces nearly the entire population back more than 1,200 years, letting almost any Icelander look up exactly how they are related to anyone else on the island.
• Currency Iceland's króna is officially split into 100 aurar, but the coins became so worthless to inflation that they were scrapped in 2003, leaving only whole krónur in circulation.
• Banknote The 5,000-króna note is the only Icelandic banknote to feature a woman: Ragnheiður Jónsdóttir, shown teaching girls embroidery, printed on raw-cotton paper that feels nothing like ordinary money.
• Parliament Iceland's Alþingi, founded in 930 at Þingvellir, is the oldest surviving parliament in the world and predates the country's modern independence by over a thousand years.
• Independence Iceland became a republic on 17 June 1944 after more than 98% voted to dissolve the union with Denmark, and the United States was the first nation to recognise the new state.
• Migration By 1 January 2025 immigrants made up 18.9% of Iceland's population, with people born in Poland the single largest group at 22,925 — about 31% of all immigrants.